The Sopranos creator David Chase is to revive the hit crime drama series with a new prequel movie.

The director has penned The Many Saints Of Newark (working title) alongside former Sopranos writer Lawrence Kenner.

It has been purchased by Warner Bros-owned production company New Line, in news first reported by US news site Deadline and confirmed by Chase’s representative.

Set in the era of the Newark riots in the 1960s, it reportedly features a number of The Sopranos’ characters including Tony Soprano’s father, Giovanni “Johnny Boy”, and a younger version of his wife Livia and Tony’s uncle Junior.

Chase will serve as producer and co-writer.

Warner Bros Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich told Deadline: “David is a masterful storyteller and we, along with our colleagues at HBO, are thrilled that he has decided to revisit, and enlarge, the Soprano universe in a feature film,”.

The Sopranos ran on HBO between January 1999 and June 2007 and followed the life of Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini.